THE CURCULIO. 53 



"As to the Curculio, I am dead beat but not subdued. A remedy vaunted in a New York 

 paper had my confidence for two years,, in each of which the frost killed my plum blossoms. In the 

 third the plums appeared, and so did the inevitable Curculio. Nothing loth to encounter him, I mixed my 

 nasty ammunition whale oil, soap, tobacco, sulphur and lime seized my squirt, and charged the enemy in 

 front, flank, and rear, windward and leeward, right, left, and perpendicularly. The consequence to the 

 Curculio did not seem important perhaps he rather enjoyed the aspersion but I got not a single plum." 



In the report of the Yale Agricultural Lectures, Dr. Fitch alludes to this mix- 

 ture, and thinks that two of the ingredients may be useful. 



To ascertain positively whether this mixture had any effect in repelling the Cur- 

 culio I submitted it to many tests. The Apple, Fig. 9, Plate II., was the subject of 

 one experiment ; but as that was punctured when the insects were in confinement it 

 was not conclusive. I next washed a branch of a Plum tree profusely with this mix- 

 ture, prepared exactly as recommended, and liberated a number of Curculios upon 

 it. They commenced the puncturing operations on the plums coated with the fluid 

 with the same avidity as upon the unwashed ones. 



Next, I watched some Plum trees in the garden of a neighbor who used this 

 mixture most perseveringly through the season, and they were just as much punc- 

 tured as were the plums in neighboring gardens, where nothing was done to protect 

 them. To settle this point still more positively, I made a visit to the Agricultural edi- 

 tor of this paper, at his country place in Westchester county, New York. The mix- 

 ture was prepared here by the barrel, and used profusely not only on the Plum trees 

 but on rose bushes. The gentleman being absent at the time, while waiting his 

 return, I experimented with the gardener on various insects. After the mixture was 

 thoroughly agitated, so as to be almost thick with the ingredients, Curculios were 

 put into it and kept under, and then, when they would come to the surface for 

 breath, were forced under again and again. But still these Curculios, as soon as they 

 had time to rid themselves of some of the mixture, would creep away, and when 

 fairly dry would unfold their wings and fly off. 



Several slugs from the rose bushes were treated in the same way, and although 

 they seemed to be more inconvenienced than the Curculios, they all survived it 

 The rose bushes at this time, June 24th, showed the presence of very few of these 

 slugs, and it might have been inferred that the mixture that had been used so 

 freely had killed them ; but at this time of year this pest has generally come to 



